Defender says playing for Chelsea in Champions League has given him the mental
strength to shackle world's best strikers

It is a sign of Gary Cahill’s rising status within the England squad that he was not even risked on the bench for the midweek friendly against Ecuador in Miami. The central defender was one of seven players – the seven definite starters for the opening World Cup match against Italy – who were completely rested.

Given that Cahill missed the chance of forcing his way into the 2010 World Cup squad through a one-in-a-million defect as a blood clot was detected in his chest, and then missed Euro 2012 after breaking his jaw in England’s final warm-up game, you can understand the apprehension in his voice as he spoke ahead of Saturday’s friendly against Honduras.

“I have waited a long time,” Cahill says. “The World Cup before I was an outside shot of making the squad and I had my blood clot. Then I was one game away and I broke my jaw. It was like: ‘Is this not for me?’ So to be involved in this is massive – touch wood ...”

If fortune has worked against him – not least when the Belgian winger Dries Mertens pushed him into Joe Hart at Wembley two years ago – then it has also worked for him this time round. One reason why Cahill and Phil Jagielka are so vital is the lack of options available to Roy Hodgson in central defence. It is a curiosity that a position that England were so strong in – John Terry, Rio Ferdinand and so on – is now one where they are lacking in options.

Still, before Saturday night, the pair had played 12 games together for England without losing. “Not that long ago I wasn’t really in the frame or I was grafting to get in the squad,” Cahill says. “Now, I feel like I’m a big part of it – it shows how far I have come.”

With club as well as country. Cahill made his England debut while at Bolton Wanderers but admits that it was his £7 million move to Chelsea in January 2012 that was the big step up and allowed him more opportunities to be a regular international.

“You crave a move to a big club to see if you can perform on that stage to go out and be a part of the big games and Chelsea have given me the opportunity to do that,” the 28-year-old defender says. “I have grasped it up to now – but obviously there is always massive pressure at big clubs. You never take your foot off the gas.

“I think it gave me more chance of playing for England but I was in the England squad and I did make my debut when I was at Bolton. But I do feel deep down that it gave me more chance of playing regularly because the manager sees you play in big European games.”

A Champions League and Europa League winner, Cahill has also played in some of the very biggest games in club football in his two years at Chelsea. Now the stage is set for the ultimate test as an international.

“There are no bigger games or tournaments than this,” Cahill says. “It’s my first tournament so it’s new for me. As well as the pressure being there, and it’s clear the pressure is there, I want to try and go out and enjoy it. And when you are enjoying your football you play your best football.”

The first challenge is Italy and Mario Balotelli next Saturday in Manaus, the second is Uruguay and – if fit – Luis Suárez and Edinson Cavani.

What does Cahill make of Balotelli’s unpredictability? “That’s dangerous, because you never know will he turn up, will he not,” Cahill says.

“He’s got potential to stick it into the top corner from 30 yards. He’s an unpredictable player but on his day obviously one of the best. Again just dangerous players, but you come up against them every game you play.

“I played against him a couple of times at [Manchester] City and he’s been tough. I played against him another time when he came off after 60, 70 minutes. At times he can be world-class.”

It is dealing with that single world-class moment strikers of Balotelli’s calibre can achieve that Cahill is more aware of than anything. “I’ve come off the pitch and thought: ‘I was unbelievable there for 87 minutes,’ and all of a sudden you switch off once or a cross comes in and he scores and it wrecks your whole game,” he says. “I think that’s just the nature of my position, in the same way it is for Joe Hart, Ben Foster or Fraser Forster.

“It goes through my head, I replay it a lot but then once you start your preparation for the next game you want to go straight back out and play.”

Working on the “mental” side of the game has been the biggest step up, Cahill feels, from Bolton to Chelsea and then to England. “The big games are obviously the pressure games when you have to have more concentration as opposed to defending, defending, defending, defending,” he says.

“When I was coming through I kept looking at big clubs and thinking: ‘When you’re at big clubs, you might have three or four crucial things in a game to do and you do that and you’ll keep a clean sheet’.

“It’s different now, when at Chelsea we ask questions again and again and again and sooner or later, the opposition is going to let goals in. That’s what I wanted. The hard thing about going to Chelsea was the pressure of being at a big club and playing in big games.

“I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. I’m proud that I’ve worked hard and gone through those progressions. It’s not always the fact that you start at Man Utd as kid and get in the first team and crack on and play for England. Sometimes the progression is different for whatever reasons. I felt I had worked really hard at my game to get where I am now and gone through those stages’.

“There’s a lot of players here who haven’t had experience of a World Cup. It could be bad; it could be good. Hopefully it will be good because people go out with no fear, no expectations.”